Mar 31, 2015

The starting pistol was officially fired for the general election campaign on Monday and the photo opportunities began in earnest. A very self-aware Nick Clegg rushed straight off to get himself photographed next to a sign that said 'Danger Deep Water':

Clegg was actually visiting a hedgehog sanctuary. Presumably somebody told him there was still a chance of winning some votes from the rarely-targeted 'people-who-like-hedgehogs' demographic:

"The poor, defenceless creature just looked like he wanted to curl up into a ball and hide," said the hedgehog after meeting Nick Clegg. (Credit: Getty)

Meanwhile Chancellor George Osborne headed off to Pizza Express to get himself photographed making pizzas. Presumably the message here is all about the economy: Britain is in so much debt that the Chancellor kneads more dough...

Nobody could accuse the Huffington Post of over-promising with this tweet.

Meanwhile David Cameron was chasing the youth vote by telling Heat magazine that he is Kim Kardashian's cousin. One of them of course is often regarded as little more than a famous arse, the other is married to Kanye West. Their family trees apparently meet back in 1555 with a common ancestor called Sir William Spencer, making them cousins 13 times removed. Them and most of the northern hemisphere.

And what about Ed Miliband, what's he been up to this week? All told, it's not been a bad week for the Labour leader, relatively speaking. Despite some roughing up from Jeremy Paxman in the first televised leaders' non-debate, Miliband emerged not only in tact but with a four point lead for his party.

Cameron, who benefited from an easier ride from presenters Paxman and Kay Burley - sparking complaints to Ofcom - was declared the winner by his own camp, who clung on doggedly to an ICM poll that scored the contest 54 to 46 in the Prime Minister's favour. But Miliband's supporters, not unreasonably, suggested a more meaningful poll was that which showed the reaction among floating voters - a 56 to 30 win for Miliband. That sentiment appeared to be reflected in a marked swing in Miliband's favour in the opinion polls and The Sunday Times - not normally one to unduly champion a Labour leader - certainly declared it a Miliband victory:

The Sunday Times declared Channel 4 programme The Battle For Number 10 a success for Ed Miliband.

Miliband may have won a few people over but the week was not without the obligatory PR gaffe from within the Labour camp. Over the weekend it emerged the party was selling mugs pledging to get tough on immigration. It might be one of their election pledges but who thought this would look good on a coffee cup?

With the possible exception of a UKIP coffee morning, it's hard to imagine a social, domestic or workplace situation that couldn't be made more awkward by handing somebody a hot drink in a mug showing you support tougher immigration measures.

Mar 26, 2015

Jeremy Clarkson was already on a "final warning", then he thumped a colleague, so he got sacked. Which bit of that do people think is unreasonable?

The official investigation found:

"[Producer] Oisin Tymon was subject to an unprovoked physical and verbal attack by [Clarkson]."

The BBC has undoubtedly made the right decision yet the corporation is still being criticised. Of course it was going to be criticised whatever it did it, so better to be criticised for making the right decision.

Hopefully nobody really condones workplace violence or believes wealthy celebrities should be allowed to beat and bully 'the staff'. But it seems some people's judgement is so badly clouded by their need to see a hidden agenda in all the BBC does they have lost sight of reason.

Clarkson hasn't been sacked because he is a right-wing boor. The BBC has known that for years. He has been sacked because he hit a colleague.

It's the most sensible action anybody could take in the BBC's position.

Among those who disagree is Rupert Murdoch.

How stupid can BBC be in firing Jeremy Clarkson? Funny man with great expertise and huge following.

Murdoch has made it clear that he's not the sort to sack a man like Clarkson over a little workplace bullying and violence. Commercial interests would prevail. No doubt other commercial broadcasters and media owners would also stand by Clarkson for the same reason and one of them will now snap him up.

Mar 24, 2015

As publications compete for clicks on social media, far too many are congregating around the hackneyed way of writing tweets and headlines that relies heavily on over-promising - "You'll never guess" (you probably could), "You won't believe" (you almost certainly will), "the best thing you'll read today" (it won't be, I promise) - and under-delivering - "what happened next will blow your mind" (it never does).

Once upon a time, simply not following a handful of publications was a guaranteed way to avoid such clickbait but now everybody seems to be at it (though some have been struggling to get it right as this effort from the Express shows):

"Is it The Shawshank Redemption?"

Speaking of doing it wrong, the crafting of such clickbait headlines and tweets tends to rely on a lot of assumptions about what we might already know, think, believe or even care about, such as"This video will change the way you think about cats...". Or they go so far as to tell us we've been doing something utterly mundane wrong our entire lives in the hope our nagging self-doubt and inherent insecurity about the way we peel an orange will be enough to make us click on a link:

The word "this" has a key role to play in the clickbait lexicon. "This" is the shrugging, indifferent teenager of the English language, a word so opposed to being helpful it can turn almost any informative headline into lazy clickbait by simply swapping it in for the subject of the sentence. It is used to disguise the often unspectacular truth of a story just long enough to make us click.

"This actor [who you've never heard of]..."

"Remember when this [thing you won't ever care about] happened..."

"Can you believe this [thing that's crushingly dull] just happened..."

It's Barbados by the way.

In between, we are invariably asked "Is this the funniest...", "the best..." or "the weirdest..." and everything seems to be "adorable", "funny" a "prank" or we're told it is "going viral" (in the hope it might).

* ...as long as it's the only Scottish football Vine you'll ever seen.

So taking an initiative from the Independent's John Rentoul and his banned list of words and phrases which have no place in good writing, I have started a 'Clickbait banned list'. If you're using one of the below then stop and ask yourself why. If it's because you want to over-promise and under-deliver, thus eroding the trust and respect of your readers, while insulting their intelligence and ensuring you become indistinguishable from everybody else overusing these lazy constructs, then carry on. But if that's not actually your long term goal then it's probably not too late to change.

Cameron announces he doesn't plan to be Prime Minister beyond 2020. It puts me in mind of the time Andy Cole announced his retirement from international football.

David Cameron has told the BBC's James Lansdale he doesn't fancy another two terms with him as Prime Minister.

He's probably not the only one.

But it's an odd PR move. Cameron hasn't even won the forthcoming election, yet he's talking publicly about not fancying a third term from 2020.

What's more he's 'fired the starting pistol' for the race to succeed him as party leader and Prime Minister, should Cameron triumph at the polls in May but make may for a new leader to fight the 2020 election, which sounds like the plan.

If Cameron was looking for a statement that would 1) make him appear even more arrogant, 2) Confuse voters, and 3) Divide his own party less than two months from a general election he's struck gold.

According to Ladbrokes, Boris is favourite (5/2) to succeed Cameron. Theresa May (4/1) and George Osborne (7/1) make up the top of the market. Or you can still get 33/1 on Grant Shapps. He can at least count on Michael Green's vote.

Mar 20, 2015

The first edition of Saturday's Times appeared with a picture of "children in Wales" using welding masks to look at the eclipse "yesterday". The photo was credited to "Twitter".

But it's not the first time we've met these eclipse-watching kids with their welding masks, giving us reason to believe the picture wasn't taken in Wales yesterday. Here they are in 2012 looking at an eclipse in Japan:

A quick check with Google's reverse image search tool found the 2012 image. It's a good place to start when checking the authenticity of pictures on Twitter, where fake or deliberately misleading photos are commonplace.

The Times quickly updated its front page after the mistake came to light:

The saga of Jeremy Clarkson seems to have been rumbling on for months and now it has rumbled onto the forecourt of the BBC as a tank, carrying a petition and a low-budget Stig impersonator arrived at New Broadcasting House demanding Clarkson and Top Gear are reinstated. The publicity stunt was organised by the Guido Fawkes blog and certainly caused a stir.

The petition has been signed nearly one million times, though it's hard to imagine anybody at the BBC will see the petition and be shocked to hear Clarkson and Top Gear are popular. They will have seen the viewing figures. They will have known how many countries the programme was sold to. But they will also be aware Clarkson was suspended for his alleged involvement in a "fracas", following a "final warning" from the BBC in 2014 about his behaviour. His popularity and that of the show don't appear to be in dispute.

Mar 19, 2015

It seems Danny Alexander may have been feeling a little overlooked by the Budget coverage. There was a moment during the news broadcasts on Wednesday when he definitely seemed to be coveting George Osborne's red briefcase:

Alexander's response has been to seek out some media coverage of his own, with a remarkable photo call. Looking like he was arriving for his first day as Mayor of Legoland, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury posed for the cameras with a big yellow briefcase to herald the announcement of his own alternative budget.

He was basically playing a dress-up game of 'Chancellor of the Exchequer' with a case that looked like he'd made it himself from a Selfridges bag:

"Maybe try it without the jacket? No, it still doesn't look quite right."

His PR team must actually hate him. They might as well have painted a target on him.

Inevitably, people on Twitter had a field day:

If this was Danny Alexander's first day of secondary school that thing would be on the roof of the PE block by now. pic.twitter.com/W8QRjJiiWN

Wednesday saw George Osborne deliver his latest budget. It must also have been National Get Drunk And Then Do Some Photoshopping Day.

The picture editor at the Daily Mail seems to have obliged, staggering back to their desk and staying conscious just about long enough to clumsily drop George Osborne's face onto the sun from the Teletubbies. Over at The Sun a cross-border drinking competition is surely the only explanation for George Osborne looking like Kim Kardashian north of the border, while south of the border (in every respect) George had some "epic strut" - whatever that is:

As well as creating front page images that will haunt our nightmares until at least the day we die, The Sun also this week unveiled a website dedicated to covering the election.

And then think the exact opposite. Add in a lump of reality TV troll Katie Hopkins and a large splash of Buzzfeed and you're getting close to the kind of nonsense The Sun has achieved with its Sun Nation site:

The Sun surely won't be offended to hear it described as the 'shallow end' of political discussion. Billed as 'Politics Without The Boring Bits', it clearly isn't meant to be anything more weighty or worthy than the sum of its rather tawdry parts, all held together, so far, by some fawning over David Cameron (whose "cut glass accent makes them feel all fuzzy inside" apparently), suggesting The Sun has decided who will have its backing in the General Election:

Although Cameron came sixth in The Sun's sexiest Prime Ministers list he can console himself with the site's overall positivity towards him and his party currently. (Pic: Sun Nation.)

Mar 16, 2015

The 'over-firm denial' must surely be added to the political euphemism hall of fame, following Grant Shapps' admission that he did flog get-rich-quick schemes using a pseudonym while working as a serving MP - a fact he had previously denied.

The Tory party chairman has now admitted those denials were "over-firmly" stated.

Shapps has now admitted there was crossover and has conceded he may have been 'over-firm' in his past denials. Even more 'over-firm' was Shapps' reported use of legal threats. The Guardian reports:

"Last November [Shapps] used legal threats to force a local constituent ...to delete [a] post on Facebook... about... the pseudonym and replace it with an apology that explicitly states that he was not using the Michael Green pseudonym when he was an MP."

Supporters of Shapps have been quick to rally round and attempt some pretty crude distraction and misdirection. A Tory spokesman told the BBC that "like many authors and journalists, Grant wrote with a pen name," which is true but irrelevant to the question of whether Shapps provided misleading answers about his outside business interests. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt defended Shapps on Twitter, making reference to his past business interests but again overlooked the more topical allegation which is that Shapps misled voters and the media about the extent of his involvement in those business interests:

Hunt blames the whole thing on a Labour/Guardian/BBC lefty conspiracy for good measure.

However, many of Hunt's followers were quick to point out the allegations he'd overlooked:

They weren't lies of course. He just "over-firmly" stated his denials.

Mar 15, 2015

So now we know. Ed Miliband has more kitchens than Nigel Farage has testicles.

And people say political journalism is dumbing down.

Yes, it turns out Farage has only got one ball which will do nothing to end some unwelcome comparisons to famous fascists from history. For good measure he's also written a book outlining his vision of a far-right revolution.

The book, entitled The Purple Revolution (which sounds more like a Prince tribute act), is being serialised by The Telegraph. So far we've learned two things: 1) One of Farage's testicles once swelled to the size of a lemon before it was removed, 2) The Telegraph certainly isn't shy about sending repetitive tweets.

Here's just a selection of their tweets from Saturday:

The "revolution" in question apparently began last year when Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless became the MPs for Clacton and Rochester and Strood. The previous MPs in those constituencies, of course, being Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless.

Some revolution.

The title and even the design of Farage's book also suggest it is in part a response to stand-up comedian Russell Brand, who in December last year described Farage as "a pound shop Enoch Powell" during one of the UKIP leader's many appearances on Question Time:

Coming to a pound shop near you? Farage's book bears a striking similarity in look and design to that of Russell Brand. (Credit: Amazon.co.uk)

Ed Miliband meanwhile, it has been revealed, is the proud owner of not one but TWO kitchens in his North London home.

Miliband's surplus of kitchens came to light after the Daily Mail's Sarah Vine (the wife of Tory chief whip Michael Gove, lest we forget) criticised Miliband's kitchen after it appeared on a BBC programme.

"Surely that can’t really be Ed and Justine’s kitchen?" wrote Vine, rambling to such an extent she almost stumbled accidentally upon some truth. "I hope for their sake it’s their utility room and some bossy spin doctor has shoved them in there to ...bolster Ed’s man-o’-the-people image."

Vine is on fairly thin ice with such kitchen-based snobbery, as a comment on the Mail's website pointed out:

You can remind yourself what else Michael Gove claimed on expenses here.

Also wading into kitchengate was Times journalist and Miliband family-friend Jenni Russell who pointed out the kitchen he was filmed in was just a "functional kitchenette", not to be confused with the Milibands' main kitchen which is "lovely" and definitely big enough to sit in (though possibly too big to be filmed in).

Russell's explanation of the differences between Miliband's various kitchens perhaps qualifies as a case of "with friends like that..." because Ed certainly doesn't need any more enemies right now. He's even got more enemies than kitchens.

And his enemies' enemy is clearly understatement.

"No kitchen since the Borgias has ever produced anything so toxic," wrote Robert Mendick of the Telegraph, with the same paper declaring in a separate article: "Ed Miliband's two kitchens expose the plastic inauthenticity of the Labour leader".

As the Telegraph's Michael Deacon noted of the inevitable and plentiful criticisms:

Mar 08, 2015

In 2010 the UK got its first taste of televised leaders' debates. The format was rigid, the sound bites over-rehearsed and the anecdotes tiresome and unconvincing.

Nick Clegg was generally judged to be the 'winner' though his party lost five seats in the election, while David Cameron put in a poor performance and became Prime Minister.

Some suggest the debates were moderately effective in engaging more people in politics, others suggest they merely served as a reminder of how out of touch the leaders really are. Turnout at 65.1 per cent was up slightly on 2005 (61.4 per cent). But it was down on 1997 (71.4 per cent) which may be a smarter comparison as 1997 and 2010 both offered the prospect of a likely change of government - a factor which tends to motivate supporters of all sides more than foregone conclusions like 2001 (59.4 per cent turnout) and 2005 (61.4 per cent).

So it's unclear what we really learned from this first taste of televised debates.

Yet to the read the papers, watch the news or hear MPs discussing the issue of this year’s in-doubt debates, you’d think this was a tradition as old and important as democracy itself.

In the entire history of British politics there have been three televised leaders’ debates, amounting to around four hours of air time. Yet Ed Miliband has said the leaders’ debates must be enshrined in law and the issue is dominating the run-up to the election.

It would be a shame if the debates don't happen, especially if they do engage even a few extra potential voters.

Those who have long since made up their minds but like to air their cynicism and sarcasm on Twitter during such TV events would also feel denied. But let's not pretend that what's at stake here are voters' rights. The whole issue boils down to PR and the leaders’ personal and political ambitions and agendas.

Those with the most to gain from the debates happening are keen to talk up their importance. The person with the least to gain, David Cameron, is keen to confuse and evade the issue.

Cameron has already enjoyed one term as Prime Minister secured by default and is clearly counting on replicating the feat, even if it means facing a charge of cowardice. He clearly believes going on television in front of 10 million viewers, to become the butt of online jokes and living room ridicule will only damage his campaign. What’s more, Cameron’s campaign team will be well aware that Ed Miliband's approval rating is at rock bottom and he could only benefit by Cameron agreeing to go toe-to-toe with him.

Understandably Miliband is desperate for the debates to take place, or at least for people to think Cameron has wronged the entire country if he doesn’t take part. He is no doubt aware that enshrining the debates in law is unworkable but he just wants people to think they are that important. But it’s easy to imagine Cameron isn't the only Tory who thinks facing criticism from their critics is preferable to helping Labour get Miliband's PR campaign back on track.

Ed Miliband seems to have mistaken the leaders debates for a soon-to-be-bitterly-contested boxing match. Treating an interview on Sky News like a pre-fight press conference, Miliband sent a message to David Cameron, saying he'll take him on "any time, any place, anywhere".

It doesn't have to be in the TV studio, Ed's happy to go shirts-off in the back car park of the Red Lion.

Cameron is having none of it meanwhile. His PR team have put down their glasses of Premier Cru and wrapped their arms around him, screaming "Leave it Dave! It ain't worth it!".

And they're probably right.

Cameron seems to be counting on a win by default rather than knock-out in this election and his PR team will have realised turning up for these debates will do nothing to boost his popularity or his chances, while Miliband arguably has nothing left to lose and everything to win.

Cameron's preferred option certainly appears to be the relative safety of the group debate.

Meanwhile, Labour bruiser John Prescott went on Twitter to suggest Cameron is a chicken... or maybe a cock, it's not immediately clear:

And Miliband is also goading Cameron on Twitter. He even @-mentioned him and everything. Twit just got real...

And if the image of a bare-chested Ed Miliband and David Cameron squaring off in a pub car park while John Prescott hurls digital clip art at them isn't a troubling enough image, how about the headline on this Vine video from the BBC's Robin Brant:

Don't you just hate it when social media sites cut things off mid-sentence? At least, I hope there was more to that sentence.

And speaking of car parks, it wouldn't be an election without an MP's car being photographed in a disabled space - it's a text book PR own goal, made all the more easy to spot - and all the more easy for journalists to stand up - when the car is prominently decorated with the MP's name and face.

Mar 04, 2015

The rules of the game stated each story could only be ticked off once but for the record there were EIGHT weather stories on the front page during the 29 days it took to complete. There were SEVEN stories offering top tips for living longer and Alzheimer's was covered FIVE times and cured at least three times.

In total, stories from the bingo card appeared 42 times during the 29 day period. Here's how they divided up, in the clockwise order in which they first appeared during the game:

For a while it looked like it might all be over very quickly indeed. There was a hattrick on day one and the card was half-complete within four days and two thirds complete within seven, but with Kate Middleton on holiday and the Express seemingly struggling to come up with stories about Benefits, House Prices or Arthritis the game slowed. Here's how long we were kept waiting for each story to make its first appearance.

There were many people who asked why Diana wasn't on there. While it remains true she isn't the front page regular she once was on the Express, it should be noted there was, perhaps inevitably, one Diana story on the front page during the 29 days.

Mar 02, 2015

Tony Hall: "If we didn't have a BBC funded by a licence fee, we'd have to invent it"

Tony Hall, director general of the BBC, addressed colleagues on Monday, and presented a picture of a national broadcaster at a "cross-roads" as it seeks to exploit the potential of new technology while facing charter review and calls from critics for it to be cut down to size.

The BBC has struck a more bullish note in recent times and Hall certainly spoke like somebody who knows the stakes are too high to let those with commercial or political scores to settle steer the debate unchallenged.

Hall said those who don’t support the BBC "should be transparent about their motivations, and honest about the consequences" - consequences which he believes would include the loss of balanced, impartial quality journalism, free from the influence of "shareholders, advertisers or any other paymasters".

"Take news," said Hall, taking aim at the journalistic output of unnamed rivals. "It's easy to find something on the internet that looks like a fact, that squawks like a fact but that isn't a fact. Central to our democracy is that we all proceed on the basis of shared information and don’t just make up our own."

Hall even went so far as to suggest "if we didn't have a BBC funded by a licence fee, such is the world we face, we'd have to invent it".

Of course such bullishness is both understandable and fairly predictable. Hall is defending his patch at a time when he may feel forces are conspiring against him. The general election this year may well return a government who would relish the opportunity to preside over the charter review.

Last week, parliament's Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee declared the licence fee was "becoming harder and harder to justify and sustain", though its suggestion of an unspecified levy on all households will have softened that prognosis somewhat. However, there were plenty of warning shots across the BBC's bows in the Committee report, including the suggestion the BBC should pull back from areas already well-served by commercial broadcasters.